Sir

You seem so bedazzled by President Michael Crow's brutal reshaping ('The Arizona Experiment' Nature 446, 968–970; doi:10.1038/446968a 2007) of Arizona State University (ASU) that I could not help thinking of Stephen Poliakoff's Blinded by the Sun, a play depicting the cold-fusion debacle. Your comment “Take Robert Pettit — a chemist and long-time director of the Cancer Research Institute at ASU until he lost the position in 2005” hardly touches on the ferociousness of President Crow and the events you describe. John C. Knight, in Correspondence, described those events differently (Nature 447, 528; doi:10.1038/447528b 2007).

Pettit is probably one of the most prolific and productive scientists at ASU. He has published more than 750 articles in the cancer field, and was responsible through his own prodigious funding efforts for the construction, maintenance, operation and staffing of the institute. The efforts of Pettit, his students and collaborators are known worldwide, thanks to their investigations during the past 30 years of the anti-cancer properties of natural marine products. The institute brought more funds to ASU, through its patent income, than any other inventor.

Pettit's institute was closed with startling lack of notice and the staff of more than 60 people were marched out of the building on 27 January 2006 by security personnel (see Chemical and Engineering News 10, 6 February 2006). In terms of harsh abruptness, this step must be unprecedented in US academic history.

A pending, multi-million dollar suit against Crow and ASU filed by the Government Accountability Project with the US District Court in Phoenix may yet shed light on this sorry affair.

More often than not, excessive sunshine produces sunburn, some of it even fatal.